Should Github add a language selector to the trending page?

Update: I changed the title after people pointing out that it sounds really bad and doesn’t reflect the actual content of the article. I realize it was a poor choice on my part and I apologize if I offended anyone.

Disclaimer: although most of the readers probably don’t need this disclaimer, I still feel the need to add it just to be sure to avoid any confusion: I’m not against foreign language repos and I actually think it’s a good thing that people who don’t speak English can have a place in the trending page as well. I’m also not a native speaker and used resources in my own language when I started out. The goal of this article is to point out a UX design flaw in the trending page which Github should fix and not the people who use it.

Github’s trending page is a great way to discover interesting new repositories and also a great opportunity for growing projects to gain some traction. I experienced that effect firsthand as one of my projects got there and had a lot more visitors in the early phase. I also like to go there from time to time to check out what the community is up to. I discovered many interesting projects there which I may have not found otherwise.

Nowadays I tend to check it less and less because foreign language repos — specifically Chinese — started to rule the space. Look:

Screenshot of the Github trending page

9 out of the top 10 are Chinese and I didn’t even “timed” this screenshot. I took it just as I started to write this article. Of course I could use Google Translate to check the readme but that’s a bit clunky and the demo pages and screenshots are still not in English and even the comments in the code tend to be in foreign. Only adds to my problem that a lot of the time these are region specific (e.g. for services that are not available or not used outside the country or interview material for those who want to get a job there).

I think the reason why this is only happening now and not earlier lies in the facts that: 1) China is catching up with the U.S in terms of software/technology and started to focus on expanding their talent pool, 2) Software development is one of the best ways (and sometimes the only) for people there to get out of poverty and have opportunities, 3) Github is growing and is extremely powerful so it’s understandable that it became the goto solution for these people (and the fact it’s not banned in the country is also helpful).

As I stated in the disclaimer on the top I’m not here to complain about people who create these repos. I think this is overall a good thing but it causes a break in the UX of the trending tab and I think Github is the one who should react to it. Maybe they are doing it right now… who knows? It’s not easy to fix such issues.

If I have to think about a solution 3 things come to my mind:

1. Repos already have a “language” property funnily enough which is based on the code contained in it. Similarly they could introduce another property to detect the natural language of the readme/docs/etc and assign it to the project. On the trending tab you already have an option to only browse projects in a specific programming language so you could also set this as well. A “worldwide” option could be the default. I don’t want to hide other people’s projects.
2. Repos also have a licence property which is read from the LICENSE file. Authors could add a LANGUAGE file or simply select it from a dropdown and set it manually. Listing would be the same as it is in the first point.
3. Some kind of fusion of the first two points might be the optimal one. Automatic detection every time which could be overridden by the author. This would provide convenience and flexibility at the same time.

It’s possible that I left some important variables out of the picture or this is not a problem at all. Or maybe there is a way better solution than the ones I suggested so please don’t hold it back if you have something to add.